We have seen the company deliver strong numbers on all parameters this time. The VNB (value for new business) growth has also doubled in this quarter. What led to the strong performance particularly on this front and which segments are showing strong growth?The 104% growth in VNB has been on the back of several things; one is the overall growth across the channels. Our agency channel grew by 121%. Overall, our proprietary channels grew by 90%, our direct channel grew by 70%, HDFC Bank channel grew by 44% and so on. Online channel also grew very well.

Across the board, we saw growth that is point number one. That also gave us the traction overall in VNB.

Second aspect is that with this growth, we also got expense leverage which means we had lower cost of acquisition.

The third aspect is also on the back of launch of new products which did very well. These were also higher margin products than some of the lower margin products like unit linked. We continue to do very well and this has been part of our strategy on focussing in the retirement space.

On the back of that, annuities continued to grow. So to give you a sense, the annuity growth was 70% year-on-year. It was a combination of several aspects that came together.

What has led to the improvement in the operating ROEV (Return on Embedded Value) and also the new business premium margin? What levels do you see both of these sustaining at?In six years, we have been steadily hovering somewhere around 20% mark on our return on embedded value. That for us is a given and that just shows that the business is built on a very strong foundation of profitable growth and not just top line growth for the sake of growth. The operating embedded value comprises of the unwinds and so the quality of the bad book is important and this is on the back of very healthy levels of persistency that we have been showing as well as other assumptions.

Then comes the margin itself. It is industry leading new business margins, exactly like you alluded to -- just shy of 30% that we ended, 29.9% on new business margin and growing. On the back of it, in quarter one of last year, it was 24.2% of new business margin. So expansion in margins was the second aspect.

Third aspect is that you do not find any negative variances on our assumptions so whether it is mortality assumption or expense assumption or persistency assumption. So all of that adds towards return on embedded value and that is what time and again we have been able to demonstrate.

Any progress on the Max Life deal?No, we have not had any discussion with Max Life but broadly speaking, we are open to looking at acquisition opportunities that add value to our shareholders.

Bancassurance is crucial in the insurance sector. The share of bank tie-ups has reduced in the current quarter. How do you see your distribution mix changing now?If you look at bancassurance overall, we have talked about having our eggs in several baskets and that is exactly what has happened. We want all our channels to grow. Bancassurance has grown by over 40%. HDFC Bank itself has grown by 44% and all our partners have been doing well. In terms of your question about new tie-ups, we ended this quarter at 270 relationships, out of which, 40 plus relationships were in the new ecosystem and we are growing.

Now we are slowly entering the phase wherein we are deepening those relationships. I have talked about some of the relationships like a Cholamandalam Finance, Bandhan Bank, IDFC Bank. With Bajaj Finance, we are looking at how to move beyond just the credit protect relationship into the retail space.
On the small finance banks -- Equitas and Ujjivan and Utkarsh -- we are working with them and will continue to deepen the relationship with them.

What is your broad strategy on growth? Which areas are you focussing on? Last time you said there was a huge opportunity in the pension market. What has been the update on that front?Growth is really just the beginning. If you look at the recent Goldman Sachs study, 68 million white collared addressable population is there out of which less than about 1.7 million people have bought insurance of any kind. So this is just the beginning in terms of opportunities for growth in India.

Even before we listed, we had started talking a lot on protection. Now it has suddenly become the topic of discussion and people are becoming more aware. Same thing when we started talking about the retiral space, annuity space and the need for protection in that space, again that started becoming a topic of discussion. So expanding these offerings to the Indian population and the uninsured or the underinsured is something that we really believe in and enthuses us.

Our agency channel has grown exceedingly well. The productivity has more than doubled. Our persistency in agency channel has been very good at 91% in 13 month. We think agency channel can easily get to be a very meaningful number of our percentage. It has gone up from 11% to 15% and can easily go up to 20% business. Another channel to watch out for is our online channel. All these are high growth channels.